Consumers Choose, Churn From Mobile Service Providers for Very Different Reasons

U.S. mobile service providers tend to lose customers for different reasons, a new study by Consumer Intelligence Research Partners has found, and the reasons are congruent with each firm’s positioning in the market.

AT&T and Verizon tend to lose customers because of the cost of service. That would make sense, as Verizon has a reputation as the “most expensive” carrier. AT&T does not hold quite that position in the market, but might generally be seen to be more expensive than Sprint and T-Mobile US.

Over half of consumers who switched from Verizon or AT&T said cost was the primary reason, compared to less than 40 percent for other deserting customers of Sprint or T-Mobile US.

On the other hand, customers leave Sprint and T-Mobile US because of perceived problems with network quality. That also might make sense, given the broader network coverage of the Verizon and AT&T networks.

Almost 40 percent of Sprint and T-Mobile departing customers say “network quality” is the reason they switched.

But customer churn also is less an issue than often is believed, the survey indicates. “Mobile phone customers are very loyal to their carrier,” CIRP argues.

Almost 80 percent of customers stay with their current mobile phone carrier when they buy a new phone, far more than stay with their operating system or brand of phone.

That 20 percent churn rate, spread over a two-year period, implies a churn rate less than one percent a month, at least when phones are replaced.

Loyalty varies somewhat among customers, with AT&T and Verizon maintaining the most loyal customers, and Sprint and T-Mobile have somewhat lower loyalty rates, CIRP notes. That is congruent with churn rates, which are lower at AT&T and Verizon than at Sprint and T-Mobile US.

As a generic, consumers arguably switch carriers for many reasons. Lower price, high cost, network quality, plan structure, device exclusivity or perhaps customer service quality might drive a change of service provider. But the survey shows the concrete reasons vary by carrier.

As you might guess, consumers also choose new carriers for different reasons.

AT&T and Verizon tend to appeal to consumers based on network quality, even though consumers think they cost more.

Consumers think that T-Mobile provides a lower-cost service, at the expense of network quality.

Sprint draws customers based on plan features, such as friends and family pricing or unlimited data.

Consumers do not appear to switch carriers based on the quality of customer service received from their old carrier or anticipated from their new carrier.

Popular posts from this blog

You can see where this is going. Younger users text more than they talk, and though today's users 25 and above still talk more than they text, the usage pattern is uniform: younger age cohorts text more than older age cohorts.

So as each age cohort advances, one might predict that texting behavior will grow over time. How much it grows is the only real question.

Users 18 or younger actually"talk" about as much as users 55 to 64. One suspects an awful lot of "voice" activity is of the coordination and collaboration sort, so that younger and mid-life workers might be in work groups that require more coordination than workers 55 to 64.

By now, telecom executives are well aware of the “disruption” market strategy, whereby new entrants do not so much try and “take market share” as they attempt to literally destroy existing markets and recreate them. Skype and VoIP provider one example. The “Free” services run by Illiad provide other examples. Most recently, we have seen Reliance Jio disrupting the economics of the mobile market in India, offering free voice in a market where voice drives service provider revenues. “Free” is a difficult price point in most markets. But free voice forever is among the pricing and packaging foundations for Reliance Jio’s fierce attack on India’s mobile market structure. “Free voice” does not only lead to Jio taking market share, but reshapes the market, destroying the foundation of its competitor business models. At the same time, Jio hopes to become the leader in the new market, driven by mobile data, with far-higher usage and subscribership, and vastly-lower prices. source: GSMADisruption…

“Take the package” (early retirement) quipped Tony Mosley, Ocean Specialists director of business development, after a review of major trends in the global telecom business at the latest PTC Academy program in Bangkok, Thailand.

Mosley's playful retort came just before students developed a list of key challenges they would face as new CEOs of their own retail businesses.

The work teams came up with a list of six major issues they would have to confront: Margin compression Regulation Over the top services Differentiation Spectrum Convergence As part of the three-day program, students (mid-career telecom professionals) are exposed to the business challenges leaders of businesses confront, and how they work to overcome those obstacles.

As always is the case, there was debate about whether it is possible to “move up the stack,” adding value and perhaps occupying new niches in the business ecosystem, to boost revenue and raise margins. At the concluding session, students were immersed in thinking…

Gary Kim has been a communications industry analyst and journalist for more than 25 years, and currently works mostly as a content developer (marketing copy, white papers, applied research, conference and blog content).

He speaks often at industry events, has written one book and a half dozen major market studies and 14,000 articles.

His work is noted for its examination of business model issues, especially wireless and mobile.

He recently founded the Spectrum Futures conference for the Pacific Telecommunications Council.

He was cited as a global "Power Mobile Influencer" by Forbes; ranked second in the world for strategic coverage of the mobile business.

He is a member of Mensa, the international organization for people with IQs in the top 2 percent.